Starring
Chrysanths, Efterklang, Public Service Broadcasting, The Rhythm Method, Soft Cotton County, W.H. Lung
The Front Runners
Things We Have In Common : Efterklang
Like returning navigators of distant worlds, Efterklang have aligned their epic musical vision with something more accessible to the mainstream world. It’s a move that reaps dividends.
For a start, they sing these songs in English bringing a lyrical simplicity that reveals the songs otherwise obscured the Danish curtain. There’s less of an alternative, orchestral feel. Their melodies are clear sighted, easy to find and very good indeed.
I’ll stress though that Efterklang have not played it safe. This is a comparatively short album at under 36 minutes, but it contains more within its boundaries than many albums half as long again. Rather than standing to one side this now feels like a part of the pop and rock family, an unexplored part of our musical world rather than an orbiting moon in a world of its own.
‘Balancing Stones’ still sounds like epic, big, epoch defining city music even when it clocks in at a pop standard three and a half minutes. ‘Ambulance’ provides a more muscular feel with more substance than some of their past beautifully ethereal songs. ‘Things We Have In Common’ is full of songs with countless elements to capture your ears and heart. Listen to how the swaying crowd singalong of ‘Animated Heart’ decays into a thunderous distortion. And the closing song’ To A New Day’ feels like it’s delivering an accomplishment that heralds a new era.
There’s so much love, craft and triumph woven into this album that it feels a privilege to hear it.
Taster Track : Plant
The Last Flight : Public Service Broadcasting
Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) are named after the Government television service whose mission was to inform, educate and entertain. This story of Amelia Earhart’s last flight is a wonderful achievement with the emphasis on entertainment.
PSB tell stories through song, samples and good tunes. Many bands have dabbled in this, but not many have shown such wholehearted commitment to the approach. This is pop drawn from research.
With PSB, the spoken word samples define the songs. J. Wilgoose Esq - his self styling, not mine - can manage a soundbite in a way that most politicians can only dream of doing. Try this from ‘Towards The Dawn’.
“Everybody has their dreams. I want to be ready.”
This is certainly a dramatic performance, but is it pop or theatre? It’s both, but if it’s pop you’re after you’ll find it in the excellent and exciting thrill of ‘Towards The Dawn’, the exhilaration of ‘The Fun Of It’ and in the big romantic ballad ‘A Different Kind Of Love’.
Above all though, the success of this album rests on how it hooks you into the story. Atmosphere is all. You’ll find it in the choice of musical styles. It’s in the cinematic ‘I Was Always Dreaming’ which is brimful of anticipation both for the flight and the rest of the album. The tension of ‘Monsoons’ is completely gripping.
It’s the emotional punch of ‘Howland’ that will stay with you and mark this out as something special. Howland was the island Earhart and her navigator were searching for when they crashed into the Pacific, never to be found. Its spoken samples are quieter, fading in and out and sometimes barely heard. We are, literally, losing them at sea. PSB have demonstrated before that no one understands the power of silence better. ‘Howland’ ends with a two minute silence, broken just before the end by a few seconds of ambient sound. It’s powerful and wonderful all at once.
This album is a story to grip you from the start, and a record that makes complete sense musically.
Taster Track : Arabian Flight
10 Years of Travel : Soft Cotton County
This is music to listen to if you want to be lulled into doing not very much at all. It’s absolutely lovely and will transport you to another place where your cares will drift away for the foreseeable future.
Very little is available online about Soft Cotton County. The one image shows a trio, two men and one woman, but no names. That’s a shame because ‘she’ has a lovely voice that you could listen to all day. It’s reminiscent of Dubstar or Sarah Cracknell. ‘Coward of the Country Fair’ qualifies as one of the best songs Saint Etienne never wrote.
The music is dream pop and has melodies and points of interest to keep it in your head. This has an ambient feel, drifting by without a strong sense of purpose like the astronaut caught in a bubble on the cover. In fact, that’s the word I’ve been searching for over the last four or five hours. This is weightless music. Fear not though, you’ll find yourself willingly caught up in its gorgeous, floaty atmosphere.
In ‘Blue On Blue’ they suggest they are happy in outer space, and this album feels like a message from out there. It sedates rather than energises, almost as if giving you permission to float safely with it. ‘On A Roll’ is quietly jaunty, but even there you have a sense of the vocals fading quietly away. ‘It Could Happen To You’ is the stand out track. It’s delicate and fragile, but a thing of beauty like an empty wasps’ nest or a butterfly’s chrysalis.
This is one of the most relaxing listens I’ve heard for a while. It’s a pretty album that has the same effect as a gentle massage in your favourite spa.
Taster Track : It Could Happen To You.
(They’ve just released a new single from the album with two remixes of a second track on the album)
1. Coward of the Country Fair - Radio Mix 3:34
2. The Future's Not What it Used to Be - Justin Robertson's Five Green Moons Remix 6:57
3. The Future's Not What it Used to Be - Justin Robertson's Five Green Moons Dub 6:54
The Chasing Pack
Leave No Shadow : Chrysanths
Grown up music for civilised people - that’s what you can expect from Chrysanths’ take on chamber folk.
Chrysanths is the love child of Emily Scott, founding member of Modern Studies, the Scottish / Lancs band that have released four well received albums over the years. Chrysanths share some common features with Modern Studies. Both bands operate in the area where BBC Radio 2 meets BBC Radio 3. They can both be classed as ‘difficult’ in the sense that their pleasures are not released lightly. They’ll be given to you if you put in the hard work to immerse yourself in their world. It’s fair to say that both bands have a greater liking for arranging skills than someone who can bellow “1-2-3-4!”
If you can hear the similarities, it seems reasonable to assume that Scott has something more personal to say than can be accommodated within the band. And that is where she will find her audience. She’s a woman who has outgrown foolish things. She sings as if she’s remembering and working things out in the process. She’s a calm and serious performer, a role model for women trying to balance the demands of professional roles with a vulnerability in their personal relationships. She’s honest in her emotions. “You know that words break me more than stones” as she sings on ‘Stones’. You’ll understand her pain better through these songs without being exposed to her personal anguish.
These songs provide a rich sound - probably in expense as much as tone! - and it’s a sound that carries you along with it. Her voice is warm and engaging, drawing you in. The piano trips across a pillow bed of strings. The percussion adds gentle heft and substance to the songs.
Chryanths asks for appreciation, understanding and polite applause as well as love. In a fair world she should receive all four.
Taster Track : Stones
Peachy : The Rhythm Method
This is a likeable enough record of indie songs that don’t quite know yet what they want to be.
There’s a culture clash at the heart of this record. Their voice wants to be drawn from the gritty sound of downtrodden punk and suppressed inner city UK rap but it’s too light to compete in either field. Musically, they’re facing towards lounge pop, particularly in the opening track ‘Just A Boy’s Game’.
The songs are cynical and disappointed narrations from the kitchen sink, a hundred miles away from the sophisticated nightlife that sets the musical tone. They’ve been produced by Mike Skinner (aka The Streets). They share his knack of making pithy observations on ordinary, keenly felt lives, but lack his natural realism in voicing them. Sometimes they feel like Year 9 students trying to master iambic pentameter, forcing the lines to fit the rhythm, reading them rather than saying them. You can hear it in the not quite rap of ‘I Love My Television’.
The Rhythm Method try hard but they’re still looking for the killer tune, the scalpel sharp lyric, the song that has the crowd singing along. ‘Dean Martin’ comes close. It’s unfortunate that it is marked out by the muddiest production on the record. There’s a little bit of Madness in the mix, but it’s Madness at their darkest and least wacky. There’s a simpler sincerity though to ‘Black and Blue’ that sounds like a High Street busk outside Poundland.
When all is said and done, this is an album that fails to make a strong impression, but it’s heading in the right direction. It’s flawed but promising.
Taster Track : Dean Martin
Every Inch of Earth Pulsates : W H Lung
W H Lung are part of the bedrock of indie rock. They’re solid, strong and reliable. You can’t do without it, and you ignore it to your detriment.
The image conjured up by their name is of a top hatted Victorian undertaker, in league with bodysnatchers. In fact their name is taken from a Chinese supermarket in Manchester. Their music is not some kind of Goth escape, but a commentary on real life. That’s a much more appealing prospect.
They deliver big indie moments. It’s not quite a wall of sound. The synth keyboards prevent it becoming too tied to earth, allowing the songs to float above the rooftops even if they don't exactly soar. Songs are full of textured layers that give you plenty to listen out for. They have momentum and style and are heavy and catchy at the same time.
This is not an experimental record. They.ve moved on from their 2019 debut which was hailed as such. It may not be groundbreaking, but it deserves to be ground shaking. This is accessible, bouncing up and down rock.
Anthem follows rousing anthem, trailing foreboding in its wake. Something about a song like ‘Bliss Bliss’ suggests urgent moments of crisis, but they’re moments of crisis that are grounded in the real world. There’s nothing here that you would regard as histrionic.
It seems that WH Lung have moved away from Radiohead to seek space in the more central indie ground of Nation of Language or The Maccabees. There’s a chance that they’ll be asking ‘Vertigo’ era U2 to shuffle up a bit too.
This is a solid 7/10 record that is approaching an 8. Easy though it is to like it leaves you feeling just a little stirred, rather than shaken to your core. Just a little more drama could make a big difference.
Taster Track : Lilac Sky
As ever this week's Taster Track playlists can be accessed at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42qDXrw3nLMlCSg45kCnRy?si=4499207642034207 or via the Spotify link on the Home Page.
The link to the Youtube playlist is https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-OogHy7EjHZr5_M3m0Zn5LEu_F3fMm&si=OhQF-ZPaBjUn4VMT